User blog:Matt Hadick/Wacky & Wild Entertainment Guide

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From the strange depths of Star Wars, to the goofy antics of Adventure Time, Wikia is your window into the world of wacky and wild entertainment.

We’re celebrating all things weird with some of our craziest communities — quizzing them about the zanier aspects of their favorite franchises, the best jumping-off points, and getting the inside scoop on what coming soon.

Check it out, explore more of the wacky and wild world of entertainment on Wikia, and tell us the craziest movies, TV shows, and comics that you're into in the comments!

Doomlurker, as an admin on our Marvel Movies Wikia, is no stranger to eccentric entertainment. He joined the community back in 2008, and helps to create consistency while maintaining the site’s 3000+ pages. What's hot on his radar screen? Guardians of the Galaxy, a film adaptation of the much-loved Marvel comic first published in 1969. Guardians of the Galaxy takes place far in the future — the 31st century, to be exact — of an alternate Marvel Universe timeline.

What exactly makes it wacky and wild? “I think it’s the characters,” Doomlurker says, “you’ve got this obscure team of heroes consisting of Star-Lord, Gamora, and Drax — which are all very cool — but then throw in Rocket, a talking raccoon who likes big guns, and Groot, a talking tree. It just gets crazy.” Guardians of the Galaxy’s director is also going to play a substantial role in enhancing the movie’s weird factor: James Gunn, director of offbeat films like Super and Slither, has a knack for making strange — yet irresistible — films.

Fans wanting to prepare themselves for the flick should, as Doomlurker says, “watch the other Marvel Studios films, then forget everything you just saw, because this one is going to be a space epic with a team of wacky characters.” He also recommends people check out the Guardians of the Galaxy Infinite comic and a two-part Guardians of the Galaxy prelude.

"I'm a massive fanboy of the How to Train Your Dragon series," says Toothless the Nightfury. "I first watched the film in theaters in 2010. The powerful friendship dynamic between Hiccup] and Toothless was the major draw for me. I had a scale of 1-10 that I would rate movies on, and when I saw HTTYD it became my first and only 11! What drew me to the community was the film itself, however, after that I soon discovered that the HTTYD community is chock full of amazing people."

"Toothless is most certainly not your archetypical dragon, but he’s stolen all out hearts! Practically everyone in the fandom wishes he was real! He’s incredibly expressive, and is one of the most unique animals to have popped out of theater screens in quite a while. So, it’s wacky that a so-called “kids film" would be deep enough for adults to really engage with, and wild to see such a unique dragon taking center screen and really standing out even amongst a plethora of other big scaly creatures who come storming out of Hollywood!"

"Watch the first movie FIRST. Then after that, give the books a try! Some of the later ones get dark, and and all have an interesting sense of humor (some rather unsophisticated things, but a good deal of wit). Definitely start with the film. It’s amazing, and for some of us in the fandom, it’s life changing! After that, make sure to watch Gift of the Night Fury. It's a holiday short that is shockingly heartwarming. Then, if you want to go all out, there’s the TV series! I have some personal favorites in that (Alvin and the Outcasts, What Flies Beneath, We are Family, The Night and the Fury, and View to a Skrill).

"Check out Inhonored Glory’s web novel," Toothless says. "It’s called How To Train Your Dragon II: The Dragon Whisperer, and it’s phenomenal. It’s almost complete (chapters are posted monthly), and it has already exceeded the length of the longest Harry Potter book! It’s a brilliant project, and mind-blowingly wild!"

"DreamWorks knows that the first movie was something special, and they are going all out on the second one. How to Train your Dragon 2 will soar into theaters this June, and there’s the possibility of the TV series continuing in 2015. But, maybe most exciting of all, we are getting a trilogy! Yes, that’s right, there will be three HTTYD films, all focusing around Hiccup and Toothless and their adventures!"

When you think of wacky entertainment, there’s a strong chance that your thoughts turn to the wildly popular cartoon, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Callofduty4, an admin on mlp.wikia.com, has helped transform the site into the go-to resource about the awesome animated series. He loves the show for its "light-hearted and humorous nature." And then there are the great, hilarious characters. We have the shape shifter, the crazy party ponies, and the token traveling salesmen, among others," he says.

Maybe you haven't taken the time to fully appreciate the oddities of MLP? Callofduty4 recommends that newbies ready to dip their toes into My Little Pony's eccentric world start with the "Applebuck Season" episode, before moving on to the rest of the opening episodes. There's plenty of strange stuff here, but it's all in good fun.

Ready for more? Fans of My Little Pony have a lot to look forward to in the coming months -- with a sequel to the popular Equestria Girls film and Season 5 on the way, there's no shortage of fun stuff for MLP fans to check out.

CzechOut, from the Tardis Datacore, started out editing on Memory Alpha and Bionic, but couldn't resist the wacky and wild appeal of Doctor Who! "I got into the show because Tom Baker and Lis Sladen — stars of the mid-1970s version — were a comedy double act that seemed to fit into the Britcom scene that was then dominated by Monty Python," he explains.

"You look at the first episode and ya think: There’s no way this should work at all. A grumpy old guy inside of what is effectively a telephone booth flying through time and space?"

"You never know what you’re going to get," he says. "It’s really just an anthology show, with episodes varying wildly from week to week. But then on top of that — certainly in the 21st century stories — you’ve got a sometimes bafflingly intricate through-line.



CzechOut recommends the following starting points for the Doctor Who novice:


 * Comics: Start with Endgame, and work your way forward through the Eighth Doctor stuff. Widely acclaimed as the best stories Doctor Who Magazine ever told.
 * Audios: Go for the cheaper stuff first to see if your brain will respond to audios. And the best of the more inexpensive audios definitely starts with Blood of the Daleks. It's the first in a range of stories that tells the tale of the only Doctor Who companion to have debuted on BBC Radio — the fantastic Lucie Miller played by the multiple Laurence Olivier Award-winning Sheridan Smith. If you really want your David Tennant, though, and don't mind that it's not a full-cast audio, go for the award-winning Dead Air.
 * Prose. Well, there's more prose than anything. So I'm just going to pick a personal favourite, and leave it at that. Wonderland. It's a little harder to find these days, but so, so worth it.
 * Television. Television is obviously most people's gateway, and at this point in my fandom, I'm of the belief that every episode is someone's first episode. In a sense, it doesn't matter where you start. That said, a logical place to start is the first story of every new incarnation of the Doctor. So, in the modern era, Rose, The Christmas Invasion, or The Eleventh Hour. That said, I think you could get easily hooked by watching Tooth and Claw, Vincent and the Doctor, Blink, Midnight, The Girl in the Fireplace, The Impossible Astronaut or The Empty Child — all of which have great hooks!

"Another great jumping on point will be the coming of Peter Capaldi's Doctor in late summer/early autumn," says CzechOut. "If you've never experienced Doctor Who, series 8 is the time to get on board.

In addition to being an admin on the [http://yugioh.wikia.com Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia], Cheesedude is involved in the unofficial translation process, resulting in the card names the wiki and the simulator site Dueling Network uses for cards that have not yet been officially released in English but have been in Japan. Mind blown yet?

"YGO is a fairly unique series," Cheesedude explains. "Putting aside the fact that the anime is based on people playing a card game for the fate of the world, this is a card game where Ultimate Tyranno|dinosaurs can fight knights. In Neo Space|space. An Egyptian Deity can fight a Odin Nordic God in A Legendary Ocean. YGO is a hodgepodge of concepts, and that's one of the reasons I love it. It's insane.

"If one wants to get into the card game itself, one should not watch the anime and assume the rules are 100% the same," he says. "If you simply want to watch the anime, I'd start at the beginning. But not everyone likes every series. Some fans love the original best, I am not one of them. Some hated the tomato episode, yet it was my favorite — people have applied the subtitles from that episode to other, far more serious episodes, to great effect.

The fifth anime series, ''[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/ARC-V Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V]'', just began airing in Japan. Pendulum Summons look to be something that utterly change the face of the game, making monster-on-monster combat much more prevalent than ever before. And on that note, I believe someone has already done the aforementioned tomato subs for that episode too.

Keep on exploring the wacky and wild world of entertainment on Wikia, and tell us about the craziest movies, TV shows, and comics that you're into in the comments!